Database activity monitoring is a database security technology for monitoring and analyzing database activity in near real time. Programs for database activity monitoring typically operate independently of the database management system, which is a software system designed to allow the definition, creation, querying, update, and administration of objects on a database. Typical programs for database activity monitoring operate using an interception based method of monitoring database activity. In the interception based method, a client sends queries to a database, which are intercepted by a database activity monitor. Once intercepted, the query data is parsed in order to determine the type of query and the database object affected by the query. Programs for database activity monitoring have the ability to compare the intercepted query with a predefined set of security policies. If the program determines that the intercepted query violates an established security policy, then the program sends an alert to the database security administrator that a query violates an established security policy.